High-Level Conference on Sahel food crisis “Addressing the emergency, investing in resilience”: common press briefing with the participation of Kristalina Georgieva and Andris Piebalgs

160 views

On 18 June 2012, Kristalina Georgieva, Member of the EC in charge of International Cooperation, Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Response, Andris Piebalgs, Member of the EC in charge of Development, Cheikh Hadjibou Soumaré, President of the West African Economic and Monetary Union Commission (UEMOA), and Kadré Désiré Ouedraogo, President of the Commission of the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas), held a press briefing following the High level consultation meeting on the Sahel Food Crisis, at the European Commission, in Brussels.
The meeting aimed to launch a new partnership on strengthening the resilience of the Sahel to future crises. The initiative, called AGIR Sahel (Alliance Globale pour l'Initiative Resilience), has one core aim: to make sure that the people in the Sahel can better cope with future
The European Commission is increasing its humanitarian funding to the Sahel by €40 million, bringing its response to the food crisis to €337 million. This extra funding comes just weeks before the food crisis is set to peak across the region where 18 million people are in danger from hunger.
The €40 million of funding proposed today would go towards blanket feeding programmes for children and distribution of food to the poorest households. Where food is still available on local markets, the funding will be used to distribution money to people to buy food for themselves. Part of this funding will also help provide food, water, health care and shelter for the estimated 400,000 Malians displaced by conflict.